


Two Worlds Diverged in a Wood

by Gray Eggs and Sam (kiwikami)



Series: Wayward Souls AU [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Body Horror, Gen, Minor Violence, Wayward Souls AU, in which Gravity Falls is semi-sentient and Dipper is kind of a tree now, then things get steadily worse, which is technically an AU of the
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwikami/pseuds/Gray%20Eggs%20and%20Sam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Gravity Falls is sentient (and sapient) and saves Dipper's life when Bill tries to possess him during the start of the Transcendence. Rather than becoming a demon, Dipper becomes a living bridge between the mindscape and the waking world, and their respective somewhat-benevolent forests. The results are, initially, a highly spatially aware mostly-human twelve-year-old with a very green thumb and an impressive repertoire of magic tricks. Then things get steadily worse. (written for the TAU ficathon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which There Are a Lot of Trees

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this was “AU in which Bill turns Dipper into something more like Willow or the Woodsman instead of Alcor and he stays human.” I took a few liberties.

“MABEL!”

The force of the scream would have shaken the trees, if it had come from a body with a greater lung capacity and more powerful vocal chords. As it was, it echoed vaguely unnaturally in the clearing before dissipating into the silence of the grayscale world. The source of the scream was lying prone in the center of what had once been a patch of grass and flowers, but now was primarily composed of dirt and ash. The screamer himself had once been composed of clothing on top of flesh on top of muscle and bone, but now all of that, too, was scorched. He was pretty sure bones were supposed to be white and not charred black. Also they probably shouldn't poke out of skin like that? Also there was an inordinate amount of pain involved. All of these things were, understandably, major components of why he was screaming.

Also...

Also, where was he? All of the trees looked the same. There were too many trees... it was too dark... Was it nighttime? There were no stars in the sky, but no sun either. Had he fallen asleep? But never mind that. Him being lost wasn't the real problem. Him being in excruciating agony wasn't even the real problem. The actual, critical problem with this entire situation (how did this even happen what had they been doing what did Bill DO?) was far more serious.

He didn't know where Mabel was.

(there was fire and there was pain and everyone was screaming but she was screaming the loudest because she was always so loud and so energetic and so alive)

“W̫̪̼͈̩e̱̼̘̟̺̼̕l̙̭l͚̮̻̜̺͚ ҉̪̣̣̪̘̙͕w̥͕͓̻ḙ̢̥̹l͔̠ḷ̪̳̤̱ ̵̹̪̻w͎̱͙͕̣̮̭͝é̪̖l̩̕l̞̯̖̠.̡ ͓I͈̟f͈͈͇ ̷̞̙̲̯i̥͖̭̟̳̮t̪͙̙̟͝ ̴͓̜̘i̥͓͙͓s̞̭n̸͓̻͈'̘̜̳̦t̝̪̣͉̣̤͟-” the voice, resonating eerily in the silent forest, broke off in what could have been a cough, if the creature producing it had possessed anything approximating lungs.

(please please please let her still be alive)

“͓I͈̟f͈͈͇ ̷̞̙̲̯i̥͖̭̟̳̮t̪͙̙̟͝ ̴͓̜̘i̥͓͙͓s̞̭n̸͓̻͈'̘̜̳̦t̝̪̣͉̣̤͟ ̤̩̙̥̺̪̮a̮͓͕̭̝͔̩ ̱͔͔̥̠l҉̖̥̖i͈̬̳t̥̳̺̙̕t͕̜͇̞̹̳͚͠l̘͖̺e̻̭̻̻̘̯ ҉̩͖̥̙p̗̭̩͟i̱̟̬͘n̞̙e̼̕ ͜t̥͖͝r̬e͟e̜̯̪̳͕̻. Oṟ̗͍̪̺ ̴̱͕̩̩͖͚̙a̹̯͙͉t͍͚̣́ ̬̤̖ļ͎̩͎̻̯͍͇e̴͕̫͕͈͉̘a̖̻͕̭̖̜s̨t̵͕̘ ͔̥̟͓͈̳̮͠t̖̬̙̺̱͞h̤̻̥͓e̶͉͔͙̝-” the speaker's voice was shattering into pieces with every word. The speaker was doing the same. Bricks flaked off a two-dimensional surface and faded into nothingness as the corners of that damned triangle crumbled.

(please let her be alive)

“-a̹̯͙͉t͍͚̣́ ̬̤̖ļ͎̩͎̻̯͍͇e̴͕̫͕͈͉̘a̖̻͕̭̖̜s̨t̵͕̘ ͔̥̟͓͈̳̮͠...t̖̬̙̺̱͞h̤̻̥͓e̶͉͔͙̝ ̣̦s̫͕̻t̷͈͈̞̭̙u̟̝̪̤ͅṃ̡̝͈̰͖p̼̬̝͙̠̪̀ ̩̘͞o͓͖͎̦̖f͎̱͚͠ ͉o̟̙̜̮n҉̦̮͓͔e̫.̭̺̰ͅ” The demon was there on the ground beside him, wasn't he? They'd been lying there together for a while now. Maybe they'd both been bleeding out together for hours. Or maybe just a few seconds. The screaming boy wondered vaguely if the demon could bleed, or if the gold ichor on his hands and clothing and all over the clearing had come from some other source. Such a bright gold. It was almost pretty, a nice contrast since all of the trees were in gray.

(please)

The world had exploded and they were the only two left. Or maybe they were only dreaming. That would be nice, to wake up in his bed, with the covers pulled up nice and cozy and the soft morning light shining through the triangular attic window and the sounds of floorboards creaking as Grunkle Stan puttered about downstairs and Mabel ten feet away and Mabel right there already awake and bright and shining and Mabel safe and warm and happy and alive and Mabel-

“I͞ ̨A͞M NOT ̛G̨O̧I̛NG T͟O͡ D͡IE͟ H̡ERE.” the boy heard the demon say.

He stopped screaming, then. There was too much more sensory input to focus on, the demon having grabbed the boy's hand with its own. It was matte black and textureless and surprisingly clammy for something he'd once seen burn with blue fire.

“MA͞K̨E̶ A DEAL̕ W͝I̸TH͠ ͝M̸E.̶”

Oh, yes, because that had ended so well before. Really a great idea.

“What, Bill-” the boy whispered, his voice hoarse from what had really been too much screaming. It hadn't exactly gotten him anywhere, or made the pain go away. Kind of a silly thing to have been doing in the end, he supposed, his mind wandering in that detached way that it tended towards when he was on the brink of death. He had come rather close to the brink of death far too many times that summer and had thought himself used to the feeling, but this was a bit closer than he'd anticipated.

“What, Bill,” he tried again, the words burning his scorched throat as he spoke, “no... no eenie meenie... meenie miney... thing... you... that thing... none of that stuff?”

“I HAVE UNLEASHED HELL UP̛O̕N ̷YOU̢R̢ ͡WOR̛LD, P҉INE͟ TR͘E̛E.҉. ͌̓͊͊̓̏Aft̅ͬ͒͒̇ͨ͠ę̈̉ͦ͌̄r ͦ̔ͪ͆̎̀͢al̑ͯͭl̒̐ͧͬͭ̕ ͪ̿͂͜ť̐̽͛̌ͣ̂h̀a͒ͤ͋tͥ̃͢ ̿ͭ͑̇͏yͧ̎̓̅̿ͪ͂ò̾̾̊û̵'ͧ͗̔͛vͧ̄͒ͪͥ̚͝e̍͌̅̂ ͤͫ̒ͫ͋̓ͧ͟d̏̐͜o̵ͫ̈ͭ̾͒n̸ͨ̑ͭ̋̋e̒ ẗ́̌͛̌̓̐̚oͥ̒̌͏ ̴̃͋ͣ̑ͯ̑t̃rͫ̈ͬy̏͐͠ ̈ͭͮ̿҉ȁͤ̈ͨͣ̑̐nͬ̓͊ͭ̊d̵̓̎̒̓͛ ͩͬs̒̈́̌ͫͥ̽͏tö́̓ͨ҉p̑ͭ ͬm̕ê̌̿́.͒ͮ̆͛͆ ̄ͬ̾̃̒̉̋ A̴͎̱̫̫̠͇f͏͖̲̙̱̙t̼̗̳̰̥ę̘͍̰ṛ͟ ̱͝a̤̖̠͓͖͖ͅl̲̭̬l̬̼ ̯̦̫̬ṯ̠̠̭̫̰̗h̪͓͓͕e̢̗͎̹̹͍ ͏̩̗̯̫̭̗͔t̙͓r͠o̦͖͙̺̰̭ͅu̶̜̤b̺͕̼̻͍̭̥͝l͇e̞̤̭͚͎͓̗ ̜y̥̟̼̼̭o̪̹̱͎̥ú̲͎̫̜'̧̫͔͎̹͓͔͙v̺͓̬ę̬͔̮̪̜̟̪ ͈͙̰͍͠p̯u̪̤̖̤͝t͇̥̤̠̗̝͈ m̦̲̱̩͓e̜͖ ̯t̵̗h͈̠̝͡r̮̰͕̺̱o̞̜̟͞u҉͇̝g̬̖̞͔̘̖ẖ̪͍.̗͕ ̖͢The L͘EĄST҉ ͏you̵ coúl͠d͠ ͜d̀ǫ i͝s͠ ADMIT YOUR ̷F̯̯̪̺̠̖̖A̱͖͚͖̹͈͟I̘̤̣̬̙̗L͎͔U͈̺Ŕ̫̹͚̣̟Ę̥ and L̸̟͔̪̠̮E̹̣̮T.͉̥͉̖̼̥ ̖̘̯̯M̰̖̥͎͓̻E̹.̪ ͍̞̼͙̦̬I͖N̹.”

The forest, burning; the town, burning; the world, burning. All because they failed. All because he wasn't strong enough. All because he couldn't fight back hard enough. It was over and it was his fault. Was there even a planet anymore, or just a crater in space and time, a giant ball of rock blown to smithereens by... by whatever it was the demon had done?

But there were still trees. Here, in this other world, here where there was no color but there were so many trees. He was further in the woods than he'd ever been. Could this world exist without the waking world? Could there be a forest here, if the one there was burning? Were they the same forest? What if the world hadn't ended after all? What if everyone (Mabel) was still alive? What if the demon was wrong? What if Bill was wrong? What if they'd stopped him in time? What if what if what if?

(One more try.) The boy thought to himself. (One more failure.) (No. Not this time.) (What do you have to lose anyway?) (You _might_ be able to keep Bill from destroying the world.) (Assuming the world isn't already destroyed. That would kind of suck.) (What do you have to lose?) (Come on, you can't just let him win. Go out with a bang. Be awesome.) (And it's not like you can be in any more pain. Seriously.) (What do you have to lose?) (If everyone's dead at least you'll see them again.) ( _What do you have to lose?_ )

...

(Huh. I'm still pretty good at rationalizing.) (Yes, you are.) (Yes, you are.) (Yes.)

“Um, no,” he said aloud.

 **“Fi̕n̕e the͘n̸,̶ ͢we̵'̶ll̀ ̢d͢o thi̧s̵... the͝ ͝h̴̵ár̵҉͞d͘ ̴̢w̛͘͟a̴͏ỳ́͞.̧̀́”** And there was fire.

* * *

Decades ago, a sleepy little Oregon town in the middle of nowhere had been the test run for a demonic scheme to merge the dreaming and waking dimensions. Such a merging of worlds had never successfully occurred, which was good news for the inhabitants of that town, but the result had unleashed magic within its boundaries, and the forest knew that it was only a matter of time before the demon tried again, on a much larger scale.

This was that moment, and the forest had felt the world shake. It had felt _both_ worlds shake. The demon had miscalculated. Those dimensions would not merge, not entirely; the planet at large would be safe from that purgatory, where the shadows under the trees were so much darker and the only humans lost in the woods were the dreaming and the dead. But the forest could feel the demon's power there in the other world, in that monochrome echo of itself, along with the boy who was still alive and should never have gotten there in the first place. To dream was natural, but to walk the world of dreams, _that_ world of dreams, was to risk never waking up. And now the dream-forest was burning around him.

It reached out to save the boy, because it could, because there was _magic_ there and because _the demon's power is within him we must ensure it can never get out we must ensure it can never leave_. It reached out to touch his soul, reached into the other forest, and two worlds met in the middle.

Outside the boundaries of that little town, the veil was lifted, and magic was unleashed upon the world. They would call it the Transcendence. They would never know how close they had come to destruction, the tiny margin by which they missed being cast into a nightmare from which they could never awaken. Gravity Falls had already reached that margin, decades ago. There, where the boundary was already so thin, the only thing still standing between the worlds in the wake of this Transcendence was a little boy from one who was stuck in the other. A little boy who, incidentally, had just caught on fire.

There was no screaming this time, since there weren't any intact vocal-cord-possessing human bodies lying around to express their agony. There were only ashes, and two souls, fighting for supremacy in a whirling ball of flame. Blue and gold, spinning and whirling, sparks catching branches and setting them ablaze. The forest cried out in what might have been pain (silently, of course; trees rarely scream, and there had really been enough screaming that day). And in the waking world, its counterpart answered. For a moment, just a moment, Gravity Falls was the mindscape was Dipper Pines, and the forest was alive ( _I must be dead by now_ ) and it was breathing ( _is that me?_ ) and it could feel the ground beneath its feet ( _I'm pretty sure I'm a pile of ashes, actually_ ) and in one single moment, everything **shattered**.

* * *

 ( _Wake up_.)

( _I'm so tired._ )

( _You have to wake up._ )

( _So... tired..._ )

( _You did it._ _We_ _beat him. You're going to be alright_.)

A person opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground, in a clearing in a forest in a world in color. He was breathing. He was alive. He had fought with every ounce of resolve he possessed and he had emerged victorious. He wasn't sure how he was physically lying on the ground anywhere, being as he was reasonably certain that his soul had been torn from his body, though he supposed that hadn't _really_ been his body so much as a projection of it into the mindscape. But then, in that last second, that hadn't _really_ been the mindscape had it?

He was alone. He was certain of this. One soul had destroyed the other.

He was not alone. There was something there beside him. Turn. Look to your left.

He turned to look. There was nothing. There was the forest. Turn. Look to your right. Trees.

( _What happened?_ )

He reached up to remove his hat, feeling a too-great weight on his head, and his fingertips brushed air where there should have been the brim of a trucker's cap. Beneath his feet he could feel the soil, the earth, the Earth, intact and alive and safe and magical. Bill had been wrong. Bill had been wrong and he had died so why did the boy still feel him? There was still fire there, somewhere behind his soul. There was power, immense power, cosmic power, straining at the reins, but it was not part of the boy ( _not this time, not in this universe_ ). It was his prisoner, held captive in a cage of wood and vines. There were roots wound around his bones and they were keeping him safe, and of course it was mutual of course he would keep the forest safe in turn because it was his home and his family lived there and...

His family. Mabel.

The boy started laughing.

It echoed off the trees, a twelve-year-old's voice layered with something deeper and older, though not a hint of demonic distortion. Because Dipper Pines had screamed and the monochrome forest had screamed and Gravity Falls had screamed and he was laughing now because **it was a perfect three-part harmony and Mabel would be so proud**.

* * *

 _ZRRG WRXFKHG EB ILUH LV VZLIWOB VHW DEODCH_  
_EXW IODPH SRRUOB PLPLFV WKH OLJKW RI EHWWHU GDBV_


	2. Dipper the Red-Nosed Preteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all of the vague, stream-of-consciousness, abstract stuff. I tend to write like that. It'll be a bit more story- and character-oriented here on out, and later chapters will mostly be more slice-of-life or will cover larger time frames.

Mabel was still lost and everything hurt and now there was a pixie caught in her hair and this day really wasn't going very well.

Something had happened, something big – Bill had tried to destroy the world, she was pretty sure of that. She and Dipper had faced him off. There was a lot of fire and a lot of blue and every minute the world would shake and shatter even further as the fabric of reality was torn apart. Every minute the trees changed, the forest shifted around them, and at some point in the midst of it all, she'd been separated from her brother. But everything was quiet now, and if she shouted loud enough, he should hear her. The world hadn't ended, after all, so they must have done something right. Dipper must have done something right.

It was so quiet.

What had he done?

The pixie was growing increasingly irritated with Mabel's attempts to free it, which were only leading to further entanglement. Eventually it succeeded in its escape, and flew away, chittering madly, in what looked almost like a flying version of a drunken stumble. Mabel wasn't certain where it had come from, but it wasn't exactly her priority at that moment.

“DIPPER!”

No answer. It had been round about an hour now, she guessed. But he had to be around somewhere. They couldn't have ended up that far from each other, even if Bill did warp things around.

“DIPPER!”

… “DIPPEEEEEEEER!”

… “BRO-BRO, WHERE ARE YOU?”

… “DIIIIIIIIIPPEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRR!”

“Mabel!”

She spun in the direction of the cry, but the voice wasn't her brother's. It was female, for one thing. But at least Mabel recognized it; she was by this point rather eager to see a familiar face that didn't consist of a single eye and a pattern of bricks.

“Wendy!” she squealed, her grin broad but tempered by exhaustion. The flannel-clad teenager stumbled out of the forest, looking hardly worse for the wear despite the battle that had occurred only an hour ago. (It had consisted of a lot of running and screaming and fire and bizarre nightmare demon monsters and that one awesome moment when Mabel and Wendy fought a horde of living shadow things back-to-back with a crossbow and an ax – that, she recalled, had been pretty cool.)

“Heya! Thank goodness I found you – pretty much everyone else is back at the shack. The creepy triangle dude's gone, at least. It looks like this whole mess might finally be over. That'd be kind of awesome. You hurt?”

Mabel shrugged. There were bruises everywhere and all of her limbs hurt but at least she only had first-degree burns. “Naaaah, I'm good.” She had seen Dipper go up in flames. “And there's no more magical unearthly earthquakes. Unearthquakes!” But he was gonna be okay, because he was her brother and he was always so sure he could take care of himself and she trusted him to be okay. "So I guess we're probably safe now? What are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you and Dipper. Time and space did some freaky stuff back there and everyone got separated. Soos hit his head falling down a hill but it's not too bad... Stan's trying to get him to a hospital anyway, just in case. He doesn't want to go – wanted to stick around until we found you two. But hey, whew, what a day, huh?”

“Yeah...”

“Still no sign of your brother?”

“Nope. But he's gotta be around here somewhere.”

“Come on, I'll help you look for him. The Shack's back that way,” Wendy pointed to where she'd emerged from the woods (were the shadows under the trees a bit darker than normal, or was that an illusion?) “He can't be far. I mean, there's only so much forest.”

They found Dipper in a clearing half an hour later. The surrounding trees were scorched black on the side facing it, but the ground was covered in bright green grass, healthy and gleaming in the sunlight. He was lying on his back, spread-eagle, palms downward and fingers digging into the earth. His clothes were tattered and bloody, and there was quite a lot of blood on his face and arms as well, but try as they might none of them could find a wound. Nor could they wake him up.

(Mabel was crying but he was _alive_ and everything was going to be alright.)

“Right, well, we need to get him back. I'll carry him.”

“Please let me help. Please?”

“I got this one, Mabel. Upper body strength and all. You blaze the trail ahead, okay?”

Mabel stayed within three feet of her brother as they made their way Shack-wards. They returned just as the sun began to dip below the treetops, and set Dipper down on the couch opposite Soos. There was much fussing done, significant quantities of burn gel applied, and a good few exhausted tears shed, but the worry was greatly tempered by the relief of having found both twins in one piece, if a bit worse for the wear. Ten minutes went by in relative silence.

“So, doods,” Soos began, “I'm pretty sure I have a concussion.”

“I'll drive you to the clinic, Soos. Mr. Pines, why don't you stay?” Wendy was certain her boss didn't want to leave the kids for even a second after all of that. “You should be around when Dipper wakes up.”

“Uh, maybe Dipper should tag along?” Soos asked, worried. He sat up on the couch, wobbling a little bit. “Not waking up doesn't sound like a good thing.”

“Well, um-” Mabel started.

“I'm sure he's gonna be fine,” Stan interrupted, trudging across the room with an armful of water bottles, one apiece. “Here, drink up; hydration's important and all. Dipper's a tough kid. After all that magic stuff, I can't blame him for being out for the count right now. What's weirder is that there isn't a scratch on him.”

“Still. Hospital. _M_ _ight_ be a good idea, Mr. Pines?”

“-but guys, we'd have to explain the-”

“Soos, look, you're not wrong, it's just that... Mabel, sweetie, you said that... uh... Bill, he was a sleep demon or something, right?”

“Dream demon, yeah, but Grunkle Stan-”

“Yeah, well... if something _is_ wrong with the kid, chances are it's got something to do with that thing. So, hospital, probably not a lot of help, although-”

“He's looking tons better, though!” Mabel broke in, pointing. “At least, I think he is? See, the leaves aren't as wilted anymore and that's _go_ _tta_ be a good thing. And, you know, Grunkle Stan, I think they'd be _k_ _iiiiiii_ _inda_ hard to explain to a doctor.”

There was an awkward silence as three pairs of eyes followed Mabel's gesture to the empty space just above the pillow where Dipper's head was resting.

“Uh. Mabel?” Wendy frowned. “What are you pointing at?”

Mabel scooted her chair closer to her brother, jabbing her finger tentatively at that particular spot in the air. “These things, _duh_ . They're so _weird_.” She snorted. “He looks like a reindeer. Except, like, made of wood? I think that's wood. Hey, maybe I can knock on his head for good luck! Oooh, maybe his nose lights up!”

“A reindeer? I don't really see it,” Soos said, propping himself up against a pillow. “Maybe if I...” He turned his head sideways. “Nah, still not much of a resemblance.”

Wendy and Stan looked at each other and shrugged.

“Pfft. Okay, guys.” Mabel rolled her eyes. “Stop messing around. Yeah, I mean, getting Dipper home safe was _definitely_ priority number one, but now he's safe and we're safe and everything is fine and maybe we can stop ignoring the really really obvious? Also the really really _really_ weird.”

The response was another shrug from Stan and Wendy, in perfect unison.

It took a significant amount of blank staring and some detailed descriptions while Mabel poked and prodded various points in empty space, but the general consensus ended up being that yes, Mabel was very clearly seeing something that the others weren't. She shrugged it off as a twin thing; the mystery of how she alone was seeing something was significantly less concerning than the nature of the something in question. Dipper was now, apparently, in possession of a rather magnificent pair of antlers.

They looked more like branches, Mabel said, stretching out from the tangle of his hair. Like the branches of a tree. With leaves and everything, yellow-brown when they'd found him but now a dark red color and significantly less dead-looking. They were intangible, phasing through the couch pillows as if either the furniture or the arboreal headgear didn't exist; even Mabel couldn't touch them.

Though these new, bizarre appendages had grabbed everyone's attention, and sparked new concern, the growing lump on Soos's head finally prompted him and Wendy to leave, which left Stan and Mabel to watch over the sleeping twin. Mabel sat on a footstool at the head of the couch, tracing her fingers over the invisible, spiraling branches. She wasn't sure what to make of them, but whatever they were, they were there and in some way a part of her brother.

And as long as he was safe, she wouldn't care if he'd been turned into a moose.

Well, maybe she'd care a _little_.

Stan brought them each a can of Pitt Cola, and they sat for hours, watching the news, taking in the damage reports from the magical earthquakes that had occurred across the world. It soon became obvious that the earthquakes were not the only magical thing afoot. As the sun set and night fell, the town was eerily quiet, with all of its citizens inside nursing their wounds – soon they would want answers, and the Pines' had to decide what to tell them. But the rest of the world was anything but quiet. It was in an uproar. Reports of gnomes cropping up across the entirety of New Zealand, a dragon attacking Berlin, and far more sightings of the Loch Ness monster than was usual (also it had apparently eaten someone).

To put it lightly, something very strange was happening.

* * *

\- It would take two days for the full extent of the world-shattering event to become apparent. Military forces were mobilized, and rescue teams were sent in to evacuate those who'd been hit by the more powerful unearthly earthquakes; no one could determine the source, and they appeared to have occurred along ley lines rather than fault lines. That night, Dipper tossed and turned in his sleep, antlers dipping through the air and the solid matter of the couch as if there was no difference between the two.

\- It would take three days for humanity to understand that yes, magic was now very much a thing. There was additional widespread panic upon this general realization. Months, even years, would go by before this new situation was accepted as a reality, but it was obvious from the start that various laws of physics were suddenly being ignored, and magic was quickly identified by the less skeptical as a possible explanation. A select few individuals (and communities) already aware of this collectively rolled their eyes and continued to go about their business. Gravity Falls remained silent.

\- It would take four days for Mabel to begin wondering if her brother was ever going to wake up. But magic was being met with violence across the world, and taking him to the hospital was still too great a risk (what if someone other than her could _see_ )? She believed in him still. Sometimes he would stir, muttering under his breath, not quite conscious but certainly not comatose, and in those too-short minutes she spoon-fed him applesauce while his eyes remained tightly shut.

\- It would take five days for the term “Transcendence” to first be used. No one was certain what newspaper had plastered the word on its front page first, but it was an apt term, and so it would be remembered as such for millennia to come. Birds began to chirp in the trees again, now joined by the twittering laughter of the fair folk. The townsfolk began to return to their normal lives, dealing with the new status quo just as they'd always dealt with change: perseverance and community support. Lazy Susan dropped by with a rhubarb pie and asked for tips on keeping gnomes from knocking over her trashcan. She asked about the twins. “Everything,” Stan said, “is fine.”

\- It would take six days for Mark Pines to contact his uncle in a panic, demanding to know if his children were alright. Stan spun a lie, because that was what he excelled at. Yes, of course, they were both alright, they were safe and happy and everything was perfectly normal and there was no need to come and get them and they'd definitely call as soon as they could but they were out swimming in the lake at the moment.

\- It would take seven days for Dipper Pines to wake up.

* * *

( _I'm alive. Right._ _Um..._ _That happened,_ _I guess?_ )

Dipper opened his eyes slowly – at least, the left one. The right one was glued tight with that lovely crusty yellow mucus that seeped between one's eyelids while sleeping. He raised a hand and rubbed at it. Mabel noticed the motion from her position on the floor nearby, surrounded by piles of colored wool - she squealed and immediately jumped to her feet, dropping her knitting needles, one of which rolled under the couch.

“Dipper! You're awake! Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Stan, Dipper's awake! Get down here! Waddles! Where are you? He woke up! Guys come on come on _come on_!” She was at his side in seconds. “How are you feeling, bro-bro?”

“Urgh,” said Dipper. It wasn't the most articulate he'd ever been. “Mabel? Um... where are we? What happened?”

“In the Shack! You did it! I think? The unearthquakes stopped and the fire's all gone and everyone's here and safe and now the whole _world_ is magical and there are all kinds of magical creatures _everywhere_ and there's this leprechaun who won't leave our bathroom so you can't use the toilet in there for a while and you've been asleep for like a week but that's okay because-”

“Wait, _what_?” Dipper sat bolt upright, swaying slightly, and immediately regretted it as vertigo hit. His eyes were having trouble focusing on his sister, and he felt bizarrely claustrophobic in the Shack's living room. “I was out for a week?”

“Yup!”

“Mabel, that's not funny, I- argh...” he clutched his head, which had begun to hurt quite a bit. “Okay, what... what do you mean, magic's everywhere?”

“Oh, yeah, so Bill tried to glue the real world and that dream place together, but kinda ended up making everything awesome and magical and weird. Oh, and you're a moose now!”

“What?”

“Or reindeer or antelope or something, I dunno.”

“Dipper!” Grunkle Stan had finally made his way downstairs, after rushing to put on a pair of boxers (grown men could lounge in their own rooms however they were comfortable, thank you very much). “Afternoon, kid. Glad to see you up. How are you feeling?”

“Uh... woozy.” Dipper shook his head to clear it and his vision blurred for a moment. ( _On the shore of the lake t_ _here_ _'s_ _an oak that_ _was_ _struck by lightning once. A knotted rope swing_ _is hanging_ _from one of its branches, bowed with the weight of the generations of children who_ _played on it._ )

“You okay, bro? You look like you zoned out for a second there.”

“Huh? Um... yeah, no, I'm fine, I think? My head feels all weird.”

Mabel's broad smile grew a little tense, and she fidgeted with the edge of her sweater. “So... what _happened_? Like, with Bill? Did you fight him? Did you win?”

Dipper shrugged, frowning. “I guess? I mean, it's all kind of fuzzy. There was a lot of screaming? And trees.” He stopped suddenly, mouth twisting into a grotesque grimace. His eyes scrunched up and his nose wrinkled as he stuck his tongue far towards the back of his lower jaw.

“Dipper? What's wrong?”

“Dipper? Kid?”

He coughed once, twice, put his hand over his mouth, and spat out the small plastic dinosaur that had been lodged behind his teeth.

“Oh yeah!” Mabel laughed. “You weren't waking up properly so we kinda had to force-feed you baby food. It was a _dor_ able. But I thought, hey, maybe Mabel juice would help you wake up, so...”

Dipper managed a weak, dizzy smile, shaking his head again when his eyes refused to focus. As he did so, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Two somethings, in fact, dark brown and twisted and decorated with deep red leaves. He froze again, staring at them with his peripheral vision, but when he reached up to touch one, he felt only air.

Still staring, he managed a flat “What.”

“Okay, so yeah, like I said, you're like part-moose or something now? Um... so... got any ideas how _that_ happened?”

“I. _.._ ”

( _The branch is old and charred and weakened. There is a child playing on the swing now. Feel the_ _pull on the wood as the rope twists back and forth, the friction rubbing at the bark, grinding it down until there is little left to support her weight_ _._ )

“I don't remember.”

* * *

Stan left towards the kitchen with the excuse of getting Dipper some actual solid food now that he was conscious enough to chew it, though this was more a tactic of avoiding for the time being a conversation he wasn't sure how to have. Whatever had happened to the kid out in the woods that day, it had had some effect on him, possibly a permanent one. Stan had no idea what to make of someone suddenly sprouting a pair of antlers, but his instincts told him it couldn't be anything good. He opened the pantry to find a dwindling supply of rice, noodles, and various canned vegetables. He'd need to go shopping eventually. Everyone in town was starting to get back into their routines again, and so far they had seemed very calm about recent events compared with the rest of the world. There were no riots in the streets and stores of Gravity Falls, no protests, no End Is Nigh signs held proudly (and not entirely incorrectly) by doomsayers. But he didn't want to leave the kids, and Dipper was still in no state to be standing up, let alone running around in town.

Aaaaaand that was the sound of two pairs of feet leaving through front door. God damn it. Those kids would be the death of him.

He shuffled onto the porch in his slippers, a can ofgreen beans in his hand. “Hey, Dipper, you shouldn't be up and running around so soon after- Uh.”

Dipper had evidently run out of the house with little explanation, as Mabel was protesting as much as Stan, rolling her eyes at her wayward brother while failing to mask a look of deep concern. The boy was standing about twenty feet away from the porch, staring into the woods with a lost, wide-eyed look on his face. He wiggled the toes of his bare feet into the grass.

“Um... sorry, it's just... I think...” he raised a hand, pointing in an arbitrary direction that may have been towards the lake. “I think someone's gonna get hurt out there.”

“What? Who?”

“I dunno?” He shrugged, shivering slightly. “Sorry, this... I'm sorry. This is weird. Everything feels weird.”

“What do you mean, bro-bro?”

Dipper shrugged again and raised both his arms, gesturing to the general space around him. “All of this. It's like, okay so I wasn't alone with Bill, I don't think. There was maybe something else there? And now there's, I don't know, something _weird_ about everything. Like, I just _know_ that out there somewhere there's this old tree or something and there's someone who's gonna fall when it...”

(I don't want anyone to get hurt.)

( _The ivy around the trunk of the old tree thickens and grows, wrapping around the old branch and the rope attached to it._ _The child kicks out and swings high and the branch can't take the weight and it breaks with a -snap-_ ) Dipper flinched. ( _The thick vines hold up the rope long enough for the swing to complete its returning arch, sending the child tumbling only two feet onto the ground rather than twelve._ )

“You okay, kid?” Stan asked, fingers curling and uncurling nervously around the can of green beans. “Come on, let's get you back inside.”

“Yeah... yeah, I'm fine.” He had asked and the ivy had responded. What. What the actual heck. “I think I need a nap or something. Yeah.” He closed his eyes briefly, swaying on his feet though staying upright.

(Is there someone else in my head?)

(That depends on how you define “someone”.)

(Get out of my head, get out, get out, _GET OUT_ **THIS IS NOT HAPPENING AGAIN _GET OUT_ **.)

(I am not a demon. It is trapped within, safe and out of sight and out of mind. I am not going to force you out of your body. You have nothing to fear; I promise you this.)

(WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?)

(I do not have a name. Nor did I technically have a consciousness, before you so graciously provided your own. You may consider me now, in some sense, an aspect of your own mind. A figment of your imagination. A cognitive representation of our current symbiosis, which on my end is essentially unthinking. Trees are not particularly good at rational thought.)

(Why are there trees in my head?)

(I must correct myself; trees in the waking world are not particularly good at rational thought. Trees in the dreaming world are significantly more so. And between two very faintly cognizant forests and one small boy who nearly died in the wrong plane of reality, I think we make quite a competent team, don't you?)

“Dipper? What's wrong?”

“Snap out of it, kid.”

(Why can't I move?)

(We had this conversation while you were almost fully asleep, but you appear to have forgotten it. I thus regretfully deemed it necessarily to reiterate it all while you are slightly more awake. I apologize if this renders you unresponsive to the outside world. It is not my intention to cause you or your family worry.)

( _How do I get you out of my head_?)

(I am afraid that is no longer technically possible as long as you are alive. We were all burning together, you see. You bridged a gap between two worlds. You are bound to them, to us, and we to you.)

(So, what, I'm stuck with a bunch of... trees? Reading my mind?)

(There is no need. We shall someday be of one mind. The forest is many and you are one. The forest, thus, in both worlds, is now a part of _one_.)

(Okay, that sounds... _really_ stupid. Now you're just _trying_ to be cryptic. What am I supposed to do now?)

“Dipper? Come on, bro-bro, you're scaring me.”

(I have not the faintest idea. Live. Breathe. Protect. Die someday.)

(Right. Um. Thanks. And, uh... these things... on my head...?)

(You are as much a part of me as I am of you. A forest of Pines.)

(Right. I'm going to freak out about this in a minute. Can I move now?)

(We cannot converse directly as long as you are fully conscious, or fully unconscious. As long as you exist within one world, sleeping or waking, we are as one. I tire of repeating myself. Do you understand what I am telling you?)

(Yeah, no, look, I don't really care right now, okay? _I want my body back_. Mabel's worried. Let me _move._ )

Dipper collapsed to the ground, his limbs suddenly failing in their singular task of supporting him. He caught himself with one arm and groaned at the reemergence of his headache.

“Right, that's it, you're coming inside _now_ and don't you argue, kid.” Stan grumbled.

“What's wrong? Dipper what's going on?”

Dipper looked up, staring into the woods again for a moment before turning to look at his sister. “Dunno. There are trees in my head.” The antlers again caught his eye, just on the edge of his vision. “On my head, too, I guess. I think they're friendly, or something. Um... sorry for scaring you guys. I'm not really sure what's going on.”

Mabel wrapped him in a tight, warm hug, burying his face in the neck of her owl-patterned sweater. She didn't let go, even as Stan shuffled them both back inside. As he re-entered the shack, Dipper again felt closed-off and vaguely claustrophobic, but the warmth and weight of his sister with her arms around his shoulders was comforting and grounding and _everything was going to be alright now_.

Yes. Everything was going to be okay. Knock on wood.

* * *

_WZR IRUHVWV VKDUH D VLQJOH SLQH  
VBPELRVLV VXLWV WKHP ILQH_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt asked for Dipper to remain human, and human he shall – for the most part – remain. His situation is somewhat like Henry and the Woodsman; whatever he is now is a part of him, but is also its own separate being, as will become increasingly relevant and... upsetting. I can say this much: Dipper not being Alcor means he won't be dealing with summonings and cult sacrifices and the urge to devour souls. But this setup comes with its own repercussions. And while this will likely end up as a bunch of short slice-of-life chapters exploring what their lives are like in this AU-AU, I already have a very specific ending planned out. And it is not entirely happy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.


End file.
